


Supernatural

by VeronicaRich



Series: Death-Proof [5]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 04:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeronicaRich/pseuds/VeronicaRich
Summary: Will burns off his annoyance and confusion regarding his relationships with Elizabeth and Jack. Told from his son’s POV.





	Supernatural

**Author's Note:**

> Part 5 of a 7-story series; originally published in 2007.
> 
> In reposting this story, I changed how I wrote Calypso's "voice" - 10 years ago I wrote her dialogue phonetically, but I feel that's a bit problematic, so if you read this on LJ and notice the difference I made, that's why.

Liam wondered how many living people had sailed aboard his father’s ship. He was fairly certain that, regardless of the answer, nobody would believe him when he got back home – not even Dave or Li-Sun. _Some friends_ he thought, ruefully, suddenly cross at how often one of them would pipe up to interrupt a story of his. _Everyone else’s mates agrees with_ them _all the time._

He slid off the edge of Daddy’s bed and crossed the room to the forge. Old Bill had told him once this used to be where a great pipe organ had stood, that the previous captain had played, even underwater. When Liam asked what happened to the previous captain, Bill’s storytelling had dried up that day, and he merely answered that he’d died shortly before Daddy had become captain.

Liam peered into the cold coals and the half-finished sword still plunged into their soot. Grasping the handle, he pulled it free – even using both hands, it was hard to lift, and he rested the flat of the blade against the edge of the heatbox, running his eyes up and down the rough blackened blade, picturing what yet needed to be done to it. Ever since he’d first watched his father work a forge at the age of four, he’d been fascinated with how lumps of iron could be turned into the sleek weapons his parents and Captain Jack wielded so artfully. Back home, he’d even stop by the local blacksmith’s the few occasions he had no homework right after school, and the rare times the man was forging blades instead of nails and tools, Liam could watch, rapt, until the sun was low in the sky and the smith kindly reminded him his mother would likely be looking for him at the dinner table. (The first time he’d told Mum why he was late for dinner because of this, she’d stared at him steadily, then gone back to eating, with a small smile. When he’d started in on how the smith worked at particular part of the blade, though, she’d listened for a bit, then abruptly stood, eyes oddly bright, and excused herself from the room rather hastily. He wondered, not for the first time, if he would ever understand grownups.)

He nearly dropped the thing when the door to the cabin wrenched open. Mushroom belatedly lifted his furry head from where he slept in the center of the bed and gave two short whuffs at the return of his master. _Some watchdog_ , Liam thought with a scowl as he hurriedly shoved the unfinished blade back into the coals. He wasn’t supposed to be messing with this stuff, Daddy had told him on more than one visit, along with the usual boring platitudes about concentrating on his schoolwork and developing his manners instead.

Liam turned, still jumpy, wiping his hands on his breeches. “Is the shipwreck done?” he asked, brightly feigning interest. Not an hour ago, he’d sulked when Daddy had ordered him in here, as the _Flying Dutchman_ pulled alongside a ruptured hulk in the placid night water. When he’d thought to talk back and insist he wasn’t too young to stay on deck, Daddy’s expression had gone from its usual pleasant accommodation to a thunderous scowl, brow heavily furrowed. He hadn’t yelled or screamed; he’d simply pointed at his cabin door and spoken. _Now_ , he’d intoned darkly. _My crew obeys me, as will you._ Liam had beat a hasty, if pouty, retreat, a little afraid of William Turner for the first time in his young life.

“We’re finished, yes.” Daddy lifted off his baldric, hanging it on the back of the cabin door, and shrugged out of his greatcoat. “What are you doing?”

“Um-” He looked around – it really did no good to lie, since the dog was napping, the cat had stayed out on deck with its captain and hadn’t yet come in, and everything else to occupy him was just far enough out of reach not to aid a story about it. “Seeing if there was any fire,” he finally settled on. “’S kind of cold in here.” He rubbed his small arms, deciding for the first time that it was a little chilly. He’d never been on the _Dutchman_ at night, since when he and Mum visited, Daddy usually came aboard the _Empress_ to sleep.

Daddy crossed the room and made a short show of checking the coals, then fixed him with a mild, but telling, expression that left no doubt he questioned the veracity of his son’s excuse. Sometimes, Liam really wished he had normal parents who could be fooled once in a while like everyone else’s; however, at least Daddy had a reason for literally being able to see inside his head. With Mum, it was like her eyes followed him around even when she didn’t – it was always weird, how much she knew about his activities. Surely Shipwreck Town wasn’t _that_ small!

Finally, Daddy spoke. “Get the poker, over there; I’ll get the flint.”

Liam did as he was told, but was confused when he came back to find Daddy opening a tinderbox to check the cloth inside. “Why don’t you just use your hand?” he wondered, remembering the eerie and thrilling sight of the man starting a forge fire by simply touching the coal until they began glowing orange. _Yet another time they wouldn’t believe me_ , he thought rather uncharitably of his two main friends.

Daddy chuckled, and it comforted him to know he wasn’t upset Liam had been near the coals. “Because, you’re not going to learn how to build a fire that way.” He began showing his son what to do, shooting him a couple of sharp glances as they worked. “You understand you’re not to do this without permission from your mother or another adult in charge of you.” It wasn’t a query, and Liam nodded, eyes never leaving the tinderbox and Daddy’s hands.

“How did you get to be captain?” he suddenly asked, the long, burning desire to know buoyed by the fact they seemed to be having a moment. “Mum said you don’t even like the water that much.”

He smiled. “She’s right,” he nodded, eyes still on his work instead of his son, and even the child could see their expression sobering as he continued speaking. “There comes a time in everyone’s life, when they’re older, that they must make decisions and do things they don’t always want to do, to do what’s right.”

“You mean, like homework?”

Surprisingly, Daddy didn’t laugh at him; Liam knew adults had bigger things than sums and literature to contend with, but he didn’t understand many, and it was the closest analogy he could readily imagine. “Homework’s easy compared to … other things,” he explained, softly. “I don’t mean merely the unpleasant or inconvenient – I mean, there are times you do things you’re not supposed to … well, because you should, right then.”

“Like making fire by yourself.”

Daddy did look up at that, regarding him steadily. “Exactly.”

“What you just told me not to do.”

He sighed, but it wasn’t a put-out sigh or a weary sigh – Liam knew those well from his various adults. This was something to give Daddy time to think, something else adults needed to do a lot. Liam wondered if he would like growing up so much, considering people’s thought processes seemed to slow down when they were old, and he liked the fact he could come up with ideas right off the cuff now, instead. “If something unfortunate happened, and you were by yourself at night on a deserted island, without anyone else around, and you were cold, how would you get warm?”

Ah, he knew this one! “Burn rum.” Daddy’s expression of confusion was most unexpected. “Captain Jack told me Mum made a fire out of his rum.”

“I see.” Now he could tell Daddy was trying not to laugh. “No, no, that’s dangerous – but, all right, well, how would you set fire to the rum, though?” Suddenly, he understood his father. “You shouldn’t set fires by yourself, and you _definitely_ shouldn’t be burning anyone’s drinks. Much more dangerous. But if you were alone, and nobody to help you …” He trailed off, fixing his son with a look. “That’s what I mean. Sometimes you have to do things you’re not supposed to, because something more important will be lost if you don’t.”

Liam waited to be told to raise the poker, and pushed around on the coals as directed, slowly and in specific patterns. He waited a few minutes before asking again, “How did you get to be captain?”

“I killed the captain before me.”

He nearly dropped the poker, shocked. Mum had always said Daddy helped people who’d died, that what he did was necessary and right. Liam never dreamed the man might be responsible for any of those deaths.

“Remember what I said about doing things you shouldn’t?” He wondered just how detailed a look his father could get inside someone’s mind. “Killing someone is wrong; it’s a sin to take a life.” He paused. “But it’s worse to let someone take your life without defending yourself, or to let them kill someone you’re supposed to be protecting.

“Davy Jones was the previous captain of this ship. He was a … an unpleasant man, who let hate and envy tell him how to do his job, until he wasn’t doing the job of this ship at all. He spent his time hunting down the living, instead, and taking things from them, including their lives, sometimes.”

“He was evil.”

“Not even so much that.” Daddy shook his head. “Just lonely, and sad, and closed off to the world around him. He didn’t have a wife or a son, or any friends to visit him.” He smiled over at Liam, then sobered again. “He tried to kill your mother, and I stopped him – and then he tried to kill me. Captain Sparrow helped me kill him so he wouldn’t hurt any of us again, and since this ship needs a captain at all times, I had to be it.”

“How come you, and not Captain Jack? He _likes_ the sea.”

Daddy snorted a laugh. “He’d undoubtedly think that’s an excellent question, Liam. I don’t have a good answer, except that I had to. You know this ship lives; it has a say in who its captain is, as well.”

There were things that still didn’t make sense to Liam, but he calculated it might be better to make use of his father’s giving mood to learn other, more important things right now. “Why were you and Mum and Captain Jack fighting before we sailed away?”

Daddy gave him a sharp, quick look. “How much of that did you overhear?”

He felt guilty again, much as he had when Daddy had burst out of Captain Jack’s wardroom and caught him standing too close to the door. Instead of giving him a what-for at the time, though, he’d extended his hand and brusquely asked, “Do you want to go see what I do?” Liam had been too pleasantly surprised to wonder at his father’s failure to chide him for eavesdropping.

“Only a moment or two,” he fudged.

“Don’t lie, son.”

Uncomfortably, Liam averted his eyes to the coals, still pushing them around with the poker. “Just them saying stuff about sharing, and you getting angry and saying something about not being an award.”

Daddy passed a hand over his face, then rubbed at his chin. “Ward,” he corrected. “A ward is someone that someone else has to take care of. Like a child, or a weakened person who isn’t capable of making their own decisions.”

“They were saying you’re that?”

“Sort of.” Daddy suddenly stood, whirling to drag his chair back to the table off to the side of the large cabin. Liam stood frozen, wondering how bad it had been to listen closely to something that had been audible to everyone else on the deck of the _Black Pearl_ , anyway. If they hadn’t seen fit to keep their voices down, why should he have been obliged to ignore it? _Adults!_

But Daddy wasn’t going to yell at him, which would have been odd, anyway. He was much calmer than most adults with whom Liam dealt. “You have any friends?” he wondered, as he came back, carrying a mallet and rolling up one sleeve with his free hand.

“Yes.” He thought of Dave and Sun-Li, picturing the girl’s pigtail braids.

Daddy glanced at him, now rolling up his other sleeve. “Children you play with frequently?” He nodded, watching in wonder as the man gestured carelessly at a nearby pail and it filled magically with still-sloshing seawater. “You ever fight with them?”

_Oh, yes_. He thought of Sun-Li’s tendency to question every story he told, and Dave’s insistence they not do anything his preacher father had decreed even mildly fun.

Daddy picked up the unfinished blade and gestured for Liam to pull the poker from the fire. “Do you know how sometimes, one friend gets upset if they think you like another friend more than them?” The boy nodded. “Your mother and the captain both want to spend time with me. What I do makes that … quite difficult.” He eyed Liam, then walked away, returning shortly with another, somewhat smaller mallet. “Want to help me with this?”

The boy eyed the almost-sword avariciously, mentally filing away yet another skill with which he could truthfully impress those two Doubting Thomases. “Aye,” he nodded quickly, taking the mallet before Daddy thought he’d been struck deaf and mute and could change his mind.

And so, for the next hour or so, he listened to his father explain about swordmaking and smithing, and talking to the dead and dying, and the importance of doing a job well and with care. He didn’t understand everything Daddy said, but it began to dawn on him to listen past the cheerful tone and careful words and wonder what William Turner the elder might have chosen to do for himself, had he been in such a position as a boy, instead of dependent on the kindness of some little girl’s father in a strange, sunny land. It seemed, despite what Mum insisted to him, life was not free choice for everybody.

It was a rather momentous thought for a small boy to carry into his dreams later that night, nodding off even as his father tucked the blanket around his shoulders.

*****

Since they’d left Bill behind with Captain Jack and Mum, Liam followed his father around the ship for several days, occasionally losing track of him as he stopped to watch a crewman do something he hadn’t yet seen. One afternoon, Daddy even let him help bring some lost souls aboard, setting a low crate by the rail to boost his height and standing across from him, showing him how to wield leverage with the long-handled net. He was surprised at how much time it took, his arms getting tired after he’d helped bring only about twenty aboard. Presently, he merely sat for a while and watched as crew members brought each soul over, deposited it on the deck, and Daddy addressed him or her in their native language. He’d heard plenty of international tongues at Shipwreck – but none all spoken by the same person.

When he was small, he’d found the indistinct, gauzy creatures frightening. Eventually, however, he’d gotten used to their presence and realized he still saw them when he and Mum returned home to land – they lived in alleyways, shops, people’s houses, hovering uncertainly in the middle of the roads, even in his schoolroom. The few other people he could tell saw them usually froze up or ran off in a hurry, afraid to even glance back. Liam pitied the creatures, wondering what it would feel like to wander around with nobody to help.

But, like the others, he didn’t stick around to see if they would respond, either.

A few nights after he’d let Liam help with the sword, Captain Turner allowed his crew some revelry, taking the helm as they gathered up on deck under a scattered burst of bright stars and began playing mouth-harps and small, stringed instruments, and even a couple of horns. Liam sat on his crate and watched, straining his ears to understand the words to some of the more indecipherable and colorful shanties, and kicked his heels against the wood in time to the music. Presently he was even taking part in some of the dancing and clapping, and he couldn’t help gleefully musing that Dave’s father would most certainly _not_ approve of this story being told to his son later on.

Growing tired before much of the crew, Liam finished the last of his fourth orange, tossed the peel overboard, and licked his fingers as he settled in next to the rail curled partly into a large, loose coil of unseasoned, dry rope. He managed to sleep through the noise, even through Straw the cat curling against his ankles, only waking momentarily when he felt a mildly-scratchy blanket settling over him, and the move-away of his father’s booted footfall.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was when he heard voices. It took a moment to process it couldn’t be crew, because the only two he could make out were Daddy’s … and some woman’s, addressing him by his Christian name. He supposed it could be one of the souls aboard, perhaps boldly asking Daddy when they would arrive at Beyond. As he stayed half-awake, he could easily make out words, though not always their meaning.

“… can’t do that,” his father was saying, quite firmly.

“Tis not an order,” came the woman’s voice, heavily accented, though Liam didn’t know enough yet to pinpoint it. “But you cannot let your soul remain this divided, William Turner.”

“It’s not division,” he explained. “It’s just temptation; everyone goes through that, even married folk.”

“Did you before this posting?” she wanted to know. “Don’t lie to me. Even trapped as a human, I saw better than anyone the course of many lives.”

He sighed and hesitated. “Not as strongly, no.”

“It your heart, William.” She paused. “It divided for two loves, since it could not be divided by them. You are not what you were. Your mind, your soul, even your body, they have to adjust as well.”

He uttered an indistinct growl, followed by what sounded like agitated pacing. “You chose me, right? You picked me out of all the people you ran across – why? Because of what I ‘were’ before all this, aye?”

“The gods, we not toss a dart and choose at random.” She sounded amused. “You were one of those born for this, yes. Fairness of judgment and ability to love without condition. Why do ye think I offered witty Jack the compass and the map for the Cortes gold?”

“Wait- ” He paused considerably. “You’re saying you cursed Barbossa’s crew? That you arranged to have my father thrown overboard?”

“I only tapped the pendulum, William. I tap many pendulums to find my new ferryman; human nature take it from there.”

“And my mother’s death of consumption?” he demanded. “Did you-”

“Twas simply one of those threads snapping tighter,” she interrupted. “You were not my only pick, William Turner – just the one who ran the course the longest and truest.” A pause. “After all, I can only influence the sea and those that travel it, and only so much at that, trapped in a swamp.”

Liam didn’t even pretend to be trying to fall back asleep now. He couldn’t figure out everything being discussed, but it was enough to stay awake a bit longer.

“What did I do to merit this punishment?” Daddy demanded, and his voice was no longer confident or commanding. For the first time, the boy thought he sounded uncertain, and not much older than Liam himself. He wound his small hand into his blanket, tighter, feeling an unpleasant swoop in his belly, the same he’d felt when he spied Mum in the kitchen one late night a few months ago, alone and crying quietly into her hands over her face. What was the use in growing up if you were still going to be scared and sad, he wondered.

The woman’s retort was sharp. “This not a punishment!” she hissed. “Tis not my fault if you're too stupid to see what you've got right before you! Your name is known the world over, the same as compassion and respect. You have a fine boy, and more to come, if that woman be wise enough to let them be born-”

“I cannot ask Elizabeth to raise more children alone,” he interrupted.

“You think that’s only _your_ choice? You wish your son weren’t here, is that it?”

“No! I am glad of him! But a child is still a job, and difficult to raise alone.”

“Your wife be about as alone as you are aboard this ship,” she snapped, though her tone was less harsh now. “She be better where she live and sail with the young Turner than if she were broodmare to some fine and mighty like Cutler Beckett, who only pay her attention to get her with child, and then not give a damn about her.”

“Calypso-”

Liam’s eyes widened in realization as the female interrupted. “What be more punishment, William Turner, hmm? To be captaining the mightiest vessel on the seas, loved by a son and a wife and even that scurrilous Sparrow? To be the one in command, seeing your full potential, respected by crew, knowing you be in a position to protect those you treasure on these uncertain waters? Or to be stuck with someone’s dirty work, closed up in a little shop with no sunlight or glory or even simple tanks for those efforts, watching the woman you love in misery with another man?”

Well, even Liam thought he knew the answer to _that_. But Daddy surprised him. “You act as though marriage is Elizabeth’s only option in life,” he quietly replied.

To the boy’s further surprise, Calypso laughed, a merry, rich sound. “And that is why you be the perfect man at this helm. Tis no punishment to have too many love you, nor to love them back. You a demigod now, supernatural son of the sea – we immortal are not under the same social rules as those mortals who impose them on themselves.”

There was a very long silence before Daddy spoke again. “It still isn’t just to expect her to cleave only to me.”

Now Calypso sounded confused – that much Liam could glean, though he still didn’t really understand the conversation. “Whoever said she had to?”

“But the legends say she must. It’s what we heard …” Daddy trailed off, a different kind of uncertain now.

“I'd not say that.” She snorted. “The gods may be petty or cruel at times, but I am neither, nor so asinine as all that. You have one day ashore every decade, and so much the better if you have someone to love you, waiting there. Can be wife, child, pirate, grand-niece … why I care?” A pause. “If you worry nobody be there who love you, you obviously married the wrong woman.”

“I don’t think that little of her.” This was the Daddy Liam knew, voice sure.

“Then why you worry? Elizabeth be not as miserable as you make out, and you know it. All humans have rain in their lives, but we both know she be much unhappier serving teacakes and stitching doilies. You led her out of that when you defied the rules and professed your love … and you led another when you keep witty Jack from swinging. Both are in your heart, Ferryman. Davy Jones denied his heart, banished his anger with me instead of facing it, and look where it got him. And me, bound up for a fair century.” Another pause, and she lowered her voice. “Heartless you may be, William Turner, but heartless you most certainly are not.”

Despite his interest, a warm dog against his stomach, a day of climbing, and too much revelry was lulling Liam back into the land of Nod. He didn’t hear his father’s full answer in debate, or her response, but at least there wasn’t raised or sharp voices, so he drifted off once again, dreaming of the dark woman Old Bill had described, vaguely wondering why he hadn’t tried to get a peek at her while he was able.

*****

“When you’re older, I’ll take you to World’s End.”

Liam looked up from rubbing the flat of the blade they’d finally finished, polishing it to a high shine. “Really? But Old Bill said I couldn’t go over.”

“I don’t know about ‘over,’ yet.” Daddy hesitated. He was seated on another crate, fashioning a scabbard for the sword, which they had jointly decided ought to go to Mr. Gibbs, since he’d once commented in Will’s earshot that as the youngest of eight children, and then a sailor, he’d not had anything new “since me mum breathed me life!” “The end of the world is adventure enough for a boy between ten and twenty, I believe. Besides,” he added, in a much lower voice, “I’d rather not take you there until I absolutely have to.”

Liam grinned, attacking a gray spot on the blade, grinding his newfound excitement into the steel. His arms hurt more from this voyage than from any other, as he’d been doing some real work around the ship – the heels of his hands even had fresh callouses, and there was a small burn mark on his left forearm where a flake of ash had settled on the skin, marking it. It was nothing compared to Daddy’s arms, dotted with hundreds, nor his scarred chest and back – but the one that interested him the most was on his left palm, a faint white line crossing the palm in much the same manner as Mum’s. He knew the story about their cuts, but for a child of seven it still seemed terribly fitting that his parents should have some unique shared “mark” to suit them to one another.

“Did you ask Mum to marry you ‘cause of your hand?”

Daddy looked up, and did a double-take at the randomness of the question. “Wh-at?”

“You’ve both got the same scar on your hands.” He pointed at his own right palm, then hastily switched to the left when he realized his mistake. “Is that how you knew to marry her?”

The elder Turner’s eyebrows were well into his forehead at this point, and his expression changed slowly from confused to thoughtful. “Well … I never thought of it like that, no,” he admitted. “I guess that’d make the story better, wouldn’t it?” He appeared to think over something. “But we’re not the only ones. Captain Sparrow has the same kind of scar on his hand, too, for the same reason.”

“Did he lie about who he was to save you, too?”

“Noooo, it was just one of his plans.” Daddy went back to work on the leather, and Liam wondered at the studious way he avoided meeting his eyes. “He came in the caves to trick Barbossa and his crew, so he could get his ship back. And he took a cursed piece of gold when nobody was looking, and it enabled him to turn to bones in the moonlight, just like they did, long enough to let me add your grandfather’s gold coin back to the chest. But then Jack had to put his piece back, too, so the curse would be lifted and Barbossa’s men could be defeated. And he had to cut his hand to put blood on it.”

Liam had heard most of this story from Mum several times; it was one of his favorites. But in her version, the Navy arrested Barbossa’s crew and tried to hang Jack! “If Captain Jack was trying to get the _Pearl_ back, why didn’t he just take it while Barbossa’s crew was in the caves?” he wondered. “Mum said there were only two guards on board, and she was able to knock them off by herself.”

Daddy worked a little on that. “Well, Jack had to break the curse so Barbossa wouldn’t be able to come after him later on – you realize, walking under the water or some such, to find him.”

“But Mum said the curse was broken with _your_ blood on the gold. And you said Captain Jack didn’t take a piece of gold until he came into the caves,” he insisted. “You were already inside the caves, Mum said – she said she came looking for you and that Grandpa Swann wasn’t very happy about it. Did Captain Jack have to bring you your gold piece?”

“No, I had it already.”

“But …” Liam screwed up his face; he knew he had a point, but this was all very convoluted. “If Captain Jack hadn’t come into the caves, you would have just bled your hand on your gold piece and the curse would be gone, and the Navy could’ve still arrested everybody. Right?”

Daddy swallowed, an odd expression on his face. “One way of looking at it, yes.”

He was confused. “Then why did he come into the caves if he had everything he needed outside?”

For a moment, Daddy said nothing, staring off at the horizon. Finally, he said, “Because I was in trouble and he was my friend.” He looked once again at his son. “Just like your mother was, coming into the caves as she did.”

“Ohhhh.” Well, that made sense. “Neat.” Liam went back to polishing, very glad he’d finally worked out the chain of events. He lifted his cloth after a couple of minutes, glad to see the gray spot was gone. He exhaled with relief. “Am I done?” he asked, tilting the hilt toward his father.

“Hmm?” Daddy turned his eyes once again from the sea and blinked at him, then reached forth and wrapped his fingers around the hilt, lifting the sword to inspect it. “It looks good to me,” he pronounced, laying it back across the barrel Liam had been working on as a table. “Fine work for a first-timer.”

Liam blushed and squirmed in his seat. He wished Mum or one of his friends were here so he could tell them. Each time he’d asked when they were going back these past several days, Daddy had answered either “soon” or “in a while” or something equally frustrating in its lack of specificity. “Do you think Mr. Gibbs will like it?” he wondered.

His father stared at the blade for a moment before answering. “Why don’t we find out?” he said, lifting his eyes to Liam’s as he stood, picking up the sword and still holding the scabbard. “Come on; let’s go find the _Pearl_.”


End file.
